


One Tin Soldier

by 100demons



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gallows Humor, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last day comes on the cusp of spring, the nights still winter-cold, the sunlight thin and watery as it filters through the gaps of the heavy canvas sheets serving as the hospital’s walls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Tin Soldier

The last day comes on the cusp of spring, the nights still winter-cold, the sunlight thin and watery as it filters through the gaps of the heavy canvas sheets serving as the hospital’s walls.

A chuunin messenger slips through the entrance, whisper-quiet, heading over to the medics’ quarters stationed towards the rear. Her forehead protector gleams silver-bright in the muted darkness as she picks her way past haphazard rows of metals cots, careful and self-contained.

Kakashi watches through a slitted eye as she slips past him, her chakra like the bitter-sharp taste of ash in his mouth. He tries to swallow, but his mouth is too dry, too sour; bile rises up in the back of his mouth and he chokes it back down with a grunt. 

The man next to him shivers, then slips into stillness.

The chuunin disappears from the blunted edges of his perception. Kakashi closes his eye.

When he opens it again, the bed next to him is empty, thin straw mattress stripped of its sheets. A genin orderly stands by its side, his back to Kakashi, briskly unfolding a new set of linens. He moves in stiff, rhythmic motions, like a wind-up toy automaton, gears ticking steadily on underneath his brown skin. 

“If I may have your attention.”

Hyuuga-sensei steps out from the shadows of her office, made of oilcloth and conjured earth, into the dim pools of light cast by the chakra lanterns swaying from the tentpoles. Something close to quiet falls in the room, punctuated by the soft, ragged breaths of shinobi dreaming numb morphine dreams and the tang of chakra-fire burning for too long, too bright. The genin orderly snaps to attention, blanket in hand. 

“I have just received word that a treaty has been signed. The conflict has been resolved. We are no longer at war. That is all.”

Hyuuga-sensei bows, once, and returns to her office. The genin orderly looks down at the blanket in his hands for a long moment, silent.

“Any beds open?” a hoarse voice barks out. A dark head pokes itself through the gaps of the hospital’s entrance, Inuzuka fangs tattooed on her cheeks. “Message came in, we’ve got two incoming, they’ve been stabilized in the field.”

The genin sets the blanket down on the bed before moving towards the entrance, followed by a gaunt-looking medic with deep purple shadows under her eyes. “Well, Kenji?” the medic says, and the genin speaks up a beat later, “One bed just opened up, I’ll see about setting a mat for the other.”

“Alright, go on then,” the medic says, waving him off, before turning to her shorter colleague. “Any idea where they’re coming from?”

“Kanagawa Plains,” the stocky, round Inuzuka says, scrubbing at her face. “Some shitstain on our side threw a chakra bomb over into their trenches and then got hit with some kind of metal jutsu in return. One’s torn up to shreds with shrapnel, the other’s sustained some blunt force trauma to his head and has been seizing on and off since. Apparently, they didn’t hear about the ceasefire until they radioed for a medevac.”

“Hard to break a habit that’s been seven years in the making,” the thin medic comments in a colorless voice, lacing her bony, spidery fingers together. “Hyuuga-sensei only just got word now, as it is, and they signed it three days ago.”

Inuzuka crosses her arms across her chest, tilting her head back. “That’s what we get for being in some assbackwards swampland in the middle of nowhere,” she grunts. “Hey, you hear what’s for dinner tonight in the mess hall?”

“Same as always,” the thin medic responds. “Salted pork congee and ration bars.” 

“I heard they get like _real_ shit up in the campaign by Kumo. Rinko from Intel told me they had _tonkatsu_ and rice and--”

Plumes of astral smoke explode past the entrance, filling the air with the acrid smell of burnt chakra, followed by a crack of displaced air as two summoning transports land solidly outside the field hospital. 

“There’s our two cases of acute lead poisoning,” Inuzuka grins, her mouth twisting into something sharp and broken. 

There’s a flurry of activity that Kakashi can’t keep track of anymore, medics barking out orders in staccato bursts, chakra flaring and flowing in extravagant surges of power, and suddenly the empty bed next him is filled again with a bloodied wreck of a woman with more bandage than skull left. 

Kakashi catches a glimpse of jagged scars carved onto naked skin, the tattered remnants of her jounin blues cut away by clever-fingered medics, before the genin orderly covers her up with a sheet. He stops just short of her neck, letting it rest against the hollow edge of her collarbones, before drawing away.

“The war’s over now,” the genin says, whispering into the rounded shell of her ear, still wet and gleaming with blood. “Just hang on, because we’ll be going home soon,” he murmurs and it almost sounds like he believes himself. “Yeah?”

Kakashi closes his eye.

When he opens it again, the bed next to him is empty, thin straw mattress stripped of its sheets. A genin orderly stands by its side, his back to Kakashi, briskly unfolding a new set of linens. He moves in stiff, rhythmic motions, like a wind-up toy automaton, gears ticking steadily on underneath his brown skin.


End file.
